


Pepper Potts Gets a Life

by roboticonography



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, F/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Iron Man 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-26 00:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15652056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roboticonography/pseuds/roboticonography
Summary: Pepper decides it's time to stop obsessing over Tony and get a life of her own. It doesn't go quite the way she planned.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In honour of Pepperony Week 2018 on Tumblr, we're going all the way back to the start - almost.
> 
> It's been literal years since I wrote these two as the main pairing in something, so here's hoping the magic is still there!

**Prologue**

 

Tony had hobbies.

 

This realization hit Pepper Potts like a bolt of lightning one afternoon while she was sitting at her desk, filling out expense reports. She’d been thinking about—or, more accurately, _dwelling on_ —a recent visit to her doctor, who had advised Pepper that she was developing hypertension and a variety of repetitive stress injuries. She didn’t eat properly, she drank far too much coffee, and she wasn’t sleeping well. She woke up each morning feeling exhausted and anxious. She was headed straight for a heart attack, the doctor had informed her, with what seemed to Pepper to be an unwarranted amount of satisfaction.

 

But _this_ was what Pepper couldn’t understand:

 

Tony rarely slept. He subsisted almost entirely on creatine, trans-fats, and high-fructose corn syrup. He sat at his workbench for hours at a time, when he wasn’t putting himself through some sort of gruelling physical trial. He mainlined alcohol and caffeine, and she had reason to suspect that he occasionally indulged in other, decidedly less legal, substances as well. And he had not one, but _two_ high-pressure vocations. He abused his body, in every possible sense of the term.

 

So why, then, was Tony in the bloom of health, while Pepper supposedly had one foot in the grave?

 

Pepper suspected that the answer was right in front of her.

 

Tony had a variety of leisure interests: he restored cars. He built robots. He programmed computers. He lifted weights. He surfed and swam. He played several different musical instruments. He picked up women. He tinkered with the Iron Man armour. He saved the world. That last one really only counted under a very broad definition of _hobby_ —but the fact was that he did it without being asked to do it, or without being paid to do it. He did it because, for whatever reason, he got something out of it.

 

Pepper only had one hobby.

 

Pepper’s hobby was Tony.

 

It wasn’t just during work hours that he preoccupied her: Tony was her first thought when her alarm went off in the morning, and her last thought when she tumbled into bed at night. Some nights she even _dreamed_ about him—and not in a good, tension-relieving kind of way, either. On those increasingly rare occasions that she wasn’t either with him or remotely connected to him, she wondered about him, and she worried about him. She did this without being asked to do it, or without being paid to do it. Because she got something out of it—or maybe, because she _hoped_ to. Her “hobby” was teetering precariously on the edge of full-blown obsession.

 

Tony, on the other hand, rarely stopped to think about Pepper’s needs. This wasn’t because he was malicious or mean, he was just… self-interested. And why shouldn’t he be? He had productive things to do with his time, moments that were exclusively his own, recreational activities that refreshed and energized and inspired him. And that was exactly what Pepper needed.

 

She needed to stop thinking about her boss so much. She needed to relax and take some time for herself.

 

In short, she needed a hobby.

 

This key point, Pepper realized, could be the solution to her problems.

 

 

**1.**

 

Pepper enrolled in a life drawing class at a local art gallery.

 

A lifetime ago, in college, Pepper’s love of art had taken a more participatory form. She’d even considered majoring in fine arts or graphic design, before the MBA program had caught her interest.

 

After registering, she spent an enjoyable weekend shopping for art supplies and leafing through discarded sketchbooks. She was feeling more relaxed already.

 

The classes were on Thursday evenings. Pepper missed the first one because Tony called her at the house to tell her he was pinned under a collapsed suspension bridge. He was uninjured, but the impact had damaged something critical within the suit, and he couldn’t move.

 

“Civil engineering disasters aside, I think this went well,” he deadpanned, but she could hear the note of panic in his voice.

 

“Let’s hold off on declaring the mission a complete success until we get the bill from the city,” she replied.

 

Tony responded, in strident tones, with a detailed and extremely technical list of precedent-setting bridge failures that were categorically _not_ his fault. He kept this up until JARVIS reminded him he needed to conserve oxygen.

 

Pepper stayed on the line with him for almost three hours, until the emergency services were able to unearth him. She told him about her day, about the schedule she’d lined up for him the following week. She reeled out an extended anecdote about the comically bad service she and a girlfriend had received at Le St. Tropez, which had culminated in a busboy spilling a pitcher of ice water down the front of Pepper’s white dress. (She ignored Tony’s request to repeat this part of the story “with more attention to detail.”) When the conversational well ran dry, she read to him from that day’s New York Times, and gave him a _précis_ of the stock market.

 

They were two-thirds of the way through the crossword when she finally heard the distant whine and grate of heavy machinery against cement. Tony signed off moments later. She decided to wait at the house in case he needed patching up.

 

At around 4 a.m., Pepper’s chin slid from her palm, and she jerked awake to find her boss standing over her, slightly battered but notably unbowed. He had one arm wrapped around a giant box of cereal, cradling it protectively to his chest. His cheeks were bulging.

 

“How’d it go?” she asked, feeling dazed. She hadn’t realized she’d been asleep. She wondered how long he’d been watching her.

 

Tony chewed, chewed, swallowed. “I think I’ve pretty much got the problem solved,” he affirmed, and tapped his temple. There was concrete dust in his hair and beard, and the room smelled like smoke and steel and static.

 

“Oh.” She had no idea what problem he was referring to. He didn’t look too badly hurt, as far as she could tell—bruised knuckles, a few scratches. “That’s… good.”

 

“Go home, Potts,” he said, patting her absently on the shoulder. Then he poured himself a scotch on the rocks, and disappeared down the stairs.

 

*

 

Pepper missed her second drawing class because she was in New York. More accurately, she was on the tarmac at JFK, in the rain, waiting for Tony, who had decided at the absolute last minute to drive himself to the airport instead of riding with her and Happy.

 

She’d made the grievous tactical error of telling him she had somewhere to be that evening.

 

*

 

The following Thursday, Pepper finally made it to class.

 

The model for the evening was a young man of about twenty-five: boyishly handsome, with strong features, tousled dark hair, and abdominal muscles that would have made Michelangelo’s David feel the need to hit the gym.

 

Making her first rough pass with the pencil, Pepper couldn’t help but mentally calculate the amount of time that had passed since she’d last seen a naked man who wasn’t her boss. The figure she finally arrived at was pretty dismal.

 

During the break, the model shrugged on a terrycloth robe, approached her and introduced himself. His name was Ian, and he was a theatre student. “What's _your_ major?” he asked. It was clearly a line, and he admitted as much when Pepper called him on it, but he didn't give up, and she didn’t shut him down. He had a nice smile, and eyes dark enough to warrant the use of charcoal.

 

Like many of the men Pepper had met since moving to the west coast, Ian felt he was destined to be The Next Big Thing in Hollywood. He also lived in a friend’s basement and waited tables on weekends. He was _young_.

 

Nevertheless, she felt strangely comfortable with him, and by the end of the night, Ian had convinced her to jot down her phone number on the palm of his hand. “No pockets,” he quipped. He insisted she write with a Sharpie, so he wouldn’t accidentally wash it off.

 

He leaned in close while Pepper printed her name in careful letters, cradling his large, well-shaped hand in hers. “Virginia,” he breathed. “Awesome. Ever been on a motorcycle, Virginia?” Which was when she noticed: Ian had grease under his fingernails.

 

*

 

The following Thursday morning, Pepper caught Tony standing in the kitchen, elbows propped up on the counter, carelessly leafing through her drawings. She noticed, with a flash of irritation, that he was eating a popsicle—he was going to drip all over her work if he didn’t pay attention.

 

“I’m taking a class,” she explained, lunging over his shoulder for the coil-bound sketchbook. She hadn’t meant to leave it out, but she was behind on a couple of exercises and she’d been hoping to finish up over lunchtime.

 

Fending her off with a strategic elbow block, Tony continued to examine a detailed drawing of an aloe plant that had taken Pepper hours of painstaking effort to produce.

 

“These are good,” he pronounced.

 

“You think so?” She was ambivalent about the still-lifes. She preferred people—faces, gestures, movement. She edged up beside him at the counter, peeking over his shoulder.

 

“Yeah,” he said, turning to smile at her. His mouth was stained an indecent shade of red, his breath cool and cherry-sweet.

 

She watched him leaf through several pages of her tentative scratchings before arriving at the nudes, several of which she felt had turned out quite well. She reddened slightly, thinking about her inspiration.

 

“I’m flattered,” remarked Tony, indicating a charcoal sketch of Ian’s muscular back.

 

Alarmed, Pepper pointed out, “It’s not you.”

 

“No need to be embarrassed. My ass is glorious. It deserves to be immortalized.” He bit into his popsicle with an enthusiasm that made Pepper’s teeth ache.

 

“I’m _not_ embarrassed.”

 

“You’re blushing.” He flipped to the next page. “I don’t mind. Really. Any time you want me to pose for you, just ask.”

 

Pepper felt herself flushing still more deeply, out of sheer frustration. “That doesn’t look anything _like_ you!” she exclaimed.

 

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself,” said Tony, patting her arm consolingly. “You’re still learning.”

 

She gave an inarticulate cry of rage, yanked the sketchbook out of his hands, and stalked off.

 

*

 

That night after class, Pepper accepted a ride home on Ian’s Kawasaki Ninja. She lived close enough to the gallery that she could have walked, but that wasn’t the point, not really.

 

It took them five minutes to get to her condo, and ten more minutes to say goodnight at her door, although very few actual words were exchanged. After he left, Pepper had a cup of tea, changed, brushed her teeth, and went to bed—all without thinking about Tony once.

 

*

 

Friday morning, there was a manila envelope on Pepper’s desk. Inside it were half a dozen line drawings of her on drafting vellum, all from different angles, all far better than anything she had ever produced. In one sketch, she looked thoughtful; in another, annoyed; in a third, she was biting her lip to keep from smiling. They were unsigned, but the identity of the artist manifested itself in each confident pencil stroke. She’d seen Tony at his drafting table often enough to know that these probably took him a grand total of five minutes to produce. The fact that he’d apparently done them _from memory_ was a little unnerving. Not to mention that he would have had to get up at dawn in order to sneak these onto her desk before she arrived.

 

When she glanced down the hall to the CEO’s office, it was empty.

 

*

 

The Thursday that followed, she was actually standing in the open front doorway when Tony strode purposefully up the stairs with the two-thirds-complete _Times_ crossword in one hand, and two beers dangling from the other. “I know how much you hate loose ends,” he told her, uncapping one of the bottles and putting it in her hand.

 

Over her repeated protests, he deftly plucked the car keys from Pepper’s fingers and tucked them down the front of his pants. Then, while she was trying to figure out how on earth she was going to retrieve them, he called the Thai place she liked and ordered all her favourites: panang curry, nuea pad prik, and spicy mung bean salad. By that point, she’d absently drunk almost half of her beer in one long swallow.

 

She sank into the couch. “That’s a dirty trick, Mr. Stark.”

 

“Hey, if you want ‘em, come and get ‘em.” He wiggled his hips, producing a muffled jingling sound.

 

She grimaced. “Pass.”

 

He grinned and tossed her the wedge of newspaper. “Hit me with your best shot.”

 

“Let me see… ‘Over the top.’ Ten letters. Ends in C. ‘Dramatic’?” She counted the letters on her fingers.

 

“’Hyperbolic,’” he suggested. Of course it would be a math term.

 

She pencilled it in.

 

When the food arrived an hour later, the puzzle was three-quarters done, and Tony was dashing downstairs to suit up. CNN blared in the background—a hostage situation, a bomb. There were children involved. Pepper paid for the takeout.

 

Rather than set off for home immediately, Pepper quietly ate her dinner and tried to focus on the crossword, but lost it completely when she came upon 42 down. 10 letters— _multinational weapons manufacturer, exposed?_ Such a tired old pun. Besides which, they didn’t even _make_ weapons anymore. She was profoundly disappointed in Will Shortz.

 

It wasn’t until after she’d put the leftovers in the fridge that she remembered about the keys.

 

*

 

After missing three more Thursdays under similarly trying circumstances, Pepper finally admitted defeat and became a drawing class dropout.

 

She also stopped seeing Ian—he was just as pretty as her favourite Louboutins, and twice as impractical. She decided she would rather look at him through the store window than have him for everyday wear. Besides which, like most good-looking guys, he was a little too cocky. It wasn’t a quality Pepper found particularly attractive.


	2. Chapter 2

Pepper joined a running club. It was a strictly drop-in affair, every morning at 5 a.m., designed for busy professionals who couldn’t count on having the same morning free every week. They ran in parks and through quiet residential areas. Everyone listened to their MP3 players. No one socialized. It was perfect.

 

Pepper had always been an early riser; she found that running in the mornings left her feeling energized and centred for the entire day. She started to look forward to the days when she could fit in a quick run before work. She even considered training for the half-marathon. That had been the problem with art class, she realized; it was all so subjective. Pepper needed performance metrics, timelines, achievable goals.

 

When Pepper arrived at the office mid-way through her third week of running club, she was limping a little. She’d even worn flats to work that day, just to give her feet a rest.

 

Tony was slouched in her chair, feet up on the desk, doing something with his phone that she was willing to bet was not work-related. “Sore foot?” he inquired, with a surprising amount of sympathy. When she nodded, he grinned, adding, “From having it up my ass all the time, no doubt.”

 

She wrinkled her nose at the unpleasant mental image this produced.

 

He gestured to the seat opposite. “Take a load off.”

 

It was generous of him to offer, she thought dourly, considering that it was _her_ desk. Still, she sank into the chair and kicked off her shoes, sighing in relief. “I joined a running group,” she explained. “I guess I need to give my feet some time to adjust.”

 

He gestured to her canvas gym bag. “Is that your gear?”

 

“I’m not modelling it for you.”

 

“Shoes.” He retracted his legs, sat up, and patted the desk encouragingly. “Let’s see ‘em.”

 

Pepper pulled her Payless-brand sneakers from her bag and dropped them with a thunk, spreading grass and sandy dirt all over the blotter. Tony gave them a dubious once-over.

 

“You didn’t think I ran in heels, did you?”

 

Tony picked up the left shoe and examined it intently from several different angles, as though he were trying to decide how best to reverse-engineer such a complex and intriguing object. “Thought so,” he declared. “Underpronation.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“You roll your feet outwards.” He flexed the shoe to demonstrate. “It means a higher impact on the outside of your foot.”

 

“How can you tell?”

 

“The pattern of wear on the soles.” He stood up and tossed the shoe into the air; it did a little spiral before landing neatly in Pepper’s lap. “You need something with more cushioning. Spend some money, Potts, and get yourself a pair of decent cross-trainers.” He smiled. “If it’s not covered by the company health plan, it’s on me—can’t have you twisting those elegant ankles.”

 

As she watched him stroll into his office, Pepper tried not to be too flattered by the unexpected compliment.

 

*

 

Pepper was surprised to find that her hobby came with an added bonus—it gave her and Tony something to talk about other than work and Iron Man. She’d gotten so adept at returning Tony’s banter and sass that she’d never realized what all of their small talk had been lacking: an actual _topic_.

 

Pre-Iron Man, she’d always thought of Tony’s dedication to physical fitness as yet another aspect of his overarching self-interest: he worked out because it made him more appealing to the shallow sort of woman he tended to prefer. Now, though, he took his training seriously—and, as with anything else that engaged him, he’d quickly become something of an authority on the subject. After all, the human body was just one more mechanical instrument, with ranges and limits and vast potential for improvement.

 

But it turned out that Tony was occasionally interested in athletic achievements other than his own. Before long, he was greeting her each morning with a barrage of questions about times and distances, gleefully announcing by what percentage she had improved (as if she wasn’t capable of doing those calculations in her own head). During particularly dull meetings, he would text her with links to different running websites, or sign-up forms for various half-marathons.

 

One morning, Pepper arrived at the house to find Tony in the kitchen, clad in only a pair of silky red track pants. He was still flushed from the effort of his own vigorous workout, his skin dewy with perspiration in a way that made it seem exceedingly lickable.

 

“How was the run?” he asked.

 

Pepper stared, mesmerized, as the action of rubbing his damp hair with a towel caused the muscles in his upper back to tense and flex.

 

He draped the towel around his shoulders—blocking her view of the area in question, and thereby breaking the spell. “Break that nine-minute mile yet?”

 

“Almost there.” She beamed at him. “What are you making?”

 

He was loading up the blender with bananas, melon, and creatine powder. “Breakfast of champions.” He added a few glugs of orange juice and a spoonful of something green—spirulina, most likely. “Want one?”

 

Pepper was starving after such a hard run; she’d brought a couple of granola bars with her, but she didn’t think they were going to cut it. And it was rare that Tony offered to share anything. “Sure, thanks.”

 

Tony poured his concoction into two frosted glasses, and they sat at the breakfast bar, with the early morning sun streaming into the gleaming white kitchen.

 

The smoothie looked like pond scum, but it tasted fresh, and there was an unexpected sweetness. “What is that?” Pepper inquired. “Honey?”

 

“Yes, dear?” he replied, all innocence.

 

She laughed. “No, I mean…” she tapped the side of the glass.

 

“Of course not, Pepper, you’re sweet enough already.”

 

She rolled her eyes.

 

Before long, they were deep in discussion of the details of their respective workout routines. She’d listened to—okay, endured—Tony’s endless chatter about sets and reps before, but this was different; this was dialogue. Unlike their conversations about cars or missiles or targeting satellites or the Iron Man suit, this was a language Pepper could easily speak.

 

As they chatted, she became aware that he was watching her very thoughtfully, the sunlight adding warm golden undertones to his skin, his eyes.

 

She felt herself turning pink under his steady gaze. “What?”

 

“Hold still.” He reached over, cupped her face in his cheek, and ran his thumb slowly over her upper lip, removing a highly unprofessional smoothie-mustache. He slipped the thumb into his mouth, where it stayed for longer than was strictly necessary.

 

Then—as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened—he continued talking about weight vests and plyometrics, and Pepper let out a breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding.

 

“Did I tell you I ran a four-minute mile?”

 

“You did? When?”

 

“Just the other day. Of course, I did it in seven minutes—no point in rushing things, right?”

 

She swatted at his arm. He grinned unrepentantly, and sipped his drink.

 

It suddenly occurred to Pepper that this was what it could be like. Being married to Tony.

 

*

 

Half an hour later, she was in Tony’s walk-in closet, absently looping $300 worth of silk in a full Windsor knot around her boss’s neck while they reviewed the salient details of the meeting he was headed into. Tony was perfectly capable of tying a necktie, but when left to his own devices, he favoured the faster (and, in Pepper’s opinion, sloppier) four-in-hand knot. That was okay for a regular day at the office, but for a board meeting, it was simply out of the question.

 

Without warning, he reached up and lazily brushed the side of her neck with his fingertips. His eyes were pools of ink in the half-light.

 

Pepper froze, her heart thudding.

 

“What’s this?” he asked. His voice was deeper than usual, and rough, as though he’d just awakened from a sound sleep.

 

“What’s what?”

 

“Sure, _now_ you play coy. I may seem like a wallflower, Ms. Potts, but I have seen a hickey once or twice in my life.”

 

“…what?” She pushed past Tony to the full-length mirror and peered at her reflection. Sure enough, there was an angry red welt on her throat. “Oh _no_ ,” she moaned.

 

“Take it as a compliment,” he said over her shoulder, grinning at her in the mirror.

 

“Tony.”

 

“Was it that guy with the motorcycle?”

 

She wasn’t even going to ask how he knew about that. “ _Tony_. This is important. _What_ was in that smoothie?”

 

“I don’t know, a little bit of everything. Why?”

 

It turned out that Tony’s creatine powder contained natural strawberry flavouring.

 

*

 

An hour later, the individual hives were still swelling, pooling together in large puffy patches. Pepper had taken some antihistamines, but so far all they’d done was make her dopey and emotional.

 

“I forgot,” Tony kept saying, helplessly, hands spread wide. “I know you told me, but I _forgot_. You could have asked me before you drank it,” he added.

 

“Please _go_ ,” said Pepper, trying not to cry. “Go to the meeting. I’ll be okay.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Do _not_ use me as an excuse to play hooky, Mr. Stark,” she admonished. “Now get out of here, or you’ll be late.”

 

He instructed JARVIS to monitor her vital signs and to call for help immediately if necessary.

 

It wasn’t until he was out the door that she realized that a part of her—a stupid, selfish, childish part—had hoped he would insist on staying to take care of her.

 

As she lay on the couch in the large, empty house, aching and miserable, she reflected: _this_ was what it would be like being married to Tony.


	3. Chapter 3

The problem was that the hobbies Pepper had chosen thus far both had some connection to Tony. There was no way that was going to happen with the next one.

 

Pepper had fond memories of her grandmother teaching her to knit. She joined a group that met in a café on Sunday afternoons.

 

The group wasn’t what she’d expected: most of them were college students, including a few men. Still, they seemed like a good crowd—friendly, helpful. Most of the time, she just sat and drank a latte and worked on a scarf. Her progress was tenuous and halting at first, but slowly her hands settled into a steady rhythm. After a while, she found she could even carry on a conversation while she knitted, as long as the pattern wasn’t too complex.

 

Two of the regulars, Jane and Elena, were engineering students. Jane had a severe brush cut tempered by a sweet baby face, and wore outsized plastic frames and mismatched earrings; she was blunt, outspoken, and didn’t suffer fools lightly. Shy, doe-eyed Elena carried a book bag that seemed forever on the verge of popping its stitches, and spent a lot of time writing and sketching in a black-and-white composition book. Their knitting focused on something called ‘computational textile.’ They talked a lot of shop about conductive thread and actuator modules.

 

One Sunday, Elena debuted her latest project: a stylish cardigan capable of tracking the wearer’s heart rate, respiration, and body temperature, and wirelessly communicating all of the data to a smartphone. She’d had to crib a little bit from one of those heart monitor sports bras, she explained with a self-deprecating smile.

 

“That is so _Stark_ ,” said Jane, appreciatively.

 

“Pardon?” inquired Pepper, before she could stop herself.

 

The girls exchanged glances.

 

“It’s kind of an inside joke,” Jane explained. “You know, Tony Stark? Iron Man?”

 

Pepper struggled to keep her expression neutral. “What about him?”

 

“Well, he’s just… he’s freaking awesome. At everything. Right? So whenever one of us does something really cool or inventive, it’s like… yeah, that’s pretty Stark.”

 

Pepper smiled. “How much would one of those cost?” she asked. “Could I commission you to make one? I’d pay for the supplies and your time.”

 

Elena scratched her head thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t be cheap. And I’d need your measurements.”

 

“It’s not for me,” Pepper said. “It’s for someone I know.” The measurements wouldn’t be a problem—she’d made enough calls to Tony’s tailor to have them committed to memory.

 

“Do you want to make one yourself?” Elena asked. “I could teach you.”

 

“Sure,” said Pepper. “Why not?”

 

*

 

The first time Pepper unveiled her latest hobby in front of Tony, they were in his office, on a long conference call with the New York executive about strategic planning that basically involved the presenter reading directly from the PowerPoint. Pepper was taking very occasional notes, while Tony was hard at work on an elaborately crosshatched drawing of what looked like a Jericho missile targeting a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

 

Pepper dug around in her purse, finally emerging with the clear zippered plastic case that she had started using to haul her knitting around. She carefully extracted her pattern notes and measuring tape, laying everything out on the desk in front of her before unrolling her project—a scarf for Happy, whose birthday was coming up.

 

She’d completed a few rows in peace before Tony hit the mute button on the speakerphone. “What are you doing?”

 

“You’ve never seen knitting before?”

 

“Is this from a pattern?”

 

“Sort of? It’s partly based on a pattern, but I’m just making most of it up as I go.”

 

“You’re writing code, you mean.” He picked up one end of the scarf, examining the stitches up close. “It’s like a physical implementation of a stack—last in, first out. You’re storing and retrieving stitches, and then saving them to allocated memory. This is really precise work. I like it.”

 

“I actually understood that,” she told him, pleased. “Believe it or not. I have a friend who’s been teaching me.”

 

“You have a friend teaching you computing, and it isn’t me? Potts! You should’ve said you were interested.” He took out his phone. “Let me send you some links.”

 

It was strange to hear Tony refer to himself as her friend. Stranger still to realize it was true.

 

Then, of course, he ruined the moment by following up with: “You know there are machines that can do this at about fifty times the speed you’re doing it, right?”

 

“I know. That’s not the point.”

 

He waited.

 

“The point is to take the time. The hard work is part of the gift.”

 

Tony looked utterly lost.

 

On the phone, someone said, “Mr. Stark?”

 

Tony unmuted and leaned towards the speaker. “Sorry, little side discussion over here. You want to run that by me one more time?”

 

Pepper set aside her knitting and picked up her pen.

 

*

 

A few days later, they were sitting on Tony’s couch when he swung his bare feet up onto her knees. “What are you doing?” she demanded, lifting up her laptop and setting it aside before he kicked it onto the floor.

 

“Thought you might want to measure me for some socks,” he remarked airily, flexing his ankles.

 

“In your dreams,” she retorted. “Do you know how long it _takes_ to make a pair of socks?”

 

“In case you’re wondering, it’s a myth,” was his cryptic reply.

 

Pepper wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but she asked anyway: “What is?”

 

Tony wriggled his toes. “The ratio of the size of the foot to the size of other appendages.”

 

She made a disgusted noise and shoved his feet off her lap.

 

*

 

Two Sundays later, Pepper had completed a four-inch practice swatch, with three blue lights that could be programmed to blink on and off in a pattern. She felt a sense of accomplishment that she knew was probably vastly disproportionate to the task at hand.

 

Elena and Jane had their heads together in the far corner, as usual, and Pepper waited patiently for a break in their conversation to show off her swatch.

 

“It has to be solar power,” Jane was saying emphatically. “Otherwise I just don’t see how it could be possible. You would need a ridiculous amount of juice to run that thing.”

 

“What are you guys talking about?” Pepper inquired.

 

Both girls turned to look at her. “Iron Man,” they said in unison.

 

“Of course,” replied Pepper, smiling in spite of herself.

 

Elena was scribbling furiously in her notebook. “I should have brought my thermodynamics textbooks,” she muttered.

 

“I’ve looked at like three thousand pictures of it, and as far as I can tell, there’s no visible means of propulsion. How does he get off the ground? I can’t figure out where the momentum transfer is coming from.”

 

“You could always try sending Tony Stark an e-mail,” suggested Pepper. “He might not be able to give you all the details, but he’d probably answer some basic questions.”

 

Jane smacked her own forehead. “Oh yeah, so we can build our own battle armour and knock him right out of the sky. Are you freaking kidding me? Come on. And like he answers his own e-mails. I bet his minions have minions.”

 

“I bet he answers the techie ones,” Pepper countered. “A guy who would out himself as a superhero probably likes to show off a little.”

 

“You did SOS,” Elena observed, pointing to Pepper’s blinking square in an obvious attempt to prevent an argument. “Good work.”

 

“Yeah, now if you ever get stuck on a desert island with only a circuit board and some LED lights, you’re set,” added Jane.

 

“Would you call it… Stark?” Pepper asked. She couldn’t resist.

 

Jane snorted. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

 

“I’d say it’s pretty Stark,” said Elena kindly. “Especially for a first try.”

 

*

 

They were in the back of the Bentley, jammed in on the PCH—there had been some kind of fender-bender up ahead, and traffic had slowed to a crawl. Happy had the driver’s side window down, and was poking his head out, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was causing the delay. The road up ahead shimmered and wavered in the heat.

 

Tony was sprawled across his half of the back seat—sleeves rolled up, tie loosened and askew. He was on his second drink, the scotch unravelling the tension in his joints; his leg had been steadily encroaching on Pepper’s personal space for the past fifteen minutes, and she had given up pretending that it bothered her. It did bother her, but for the wrong reason: she wished he would move closer still.

 

Pepper knew she had to break the tension, before one of them did something drastic.

 

“Tony, can I ask you something?”

 

He shifted, sitting up. “Fire away.”

 

“How does the suit fly?”

 

He took a sip of his drink, and slowly crunched an ice cube. “I think happy thoughts,” he quipped. “Why do you want to know?”

 

“I’m just curious.” She shrugged. “There’s no visible means of propulsion. Where is the momentum transfer coming from?”

 

Tony’s eyebrows climbed. “Okay, that? Was hot.”

 

She smiled. “I can’t actually take credit for that. I overheard it somewhere.”

 

He leaned towards her, adopting a tone as intimate as the whisper of silk against skin. “Do you really want a physics lesson? Because we can make that happen.”

 

Against her better judgement, Pepper nodded slowly.

 

He reached across her and thumbed the button to raise the privacy glass between them and Happy. “Normally, I’d make you sign a non-disclosure agreement—well, okay, _you’d_ make you sign a non-disclosure agreement. But,” he added, in a conspiratorial whisper, “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

 

“I won’t.” She couldn’t stop thinking about how good he smelled.

 

He took a fountain pen from his shirt pocket, draped a cocktail napkin over her thigh, and scribbled a few lines of hieroglyphics while Pepper willed her leg not to twitch. “You’re getting ink on my skirt,” she protested.

 

“Check it out. Simple, right? A four-year-old could have come up with it.”

 

She peered down, but couldn’t understand any of what he had written. He bent over again and added a couple of arrows and symbols. Pepper had the dim sense of forming part of some alchemical ritual.

 

Apparently sensing her incomprehension, he brushed the napkin aside and balanced his half-full glass of scotch on her bare knee, the sudden chill so sharp it burned.

 

“Okay, watch. Pretend this glass is me, and you’re the ground.”

 

Pepper’s traitorous brain interpreted this scenario in the most literal possible way—herself, lying prone, Tony’s body covering hers. She shivered involuntarily.

 

“Sorry.” Tony lifted the cold glass up and slid his hand under it, palm down. “Better?”

 

Pepper nodded, and tried with all her might to picture Tony in his red-and-gold armour, alone in the middle of a desert somewhere, and _not_ pressed up against her in a tiny enclosed space with his hand on her leg.

 

“Good. Now—”

 

“Wait!” she exclaimed. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to know.”

 

He glanced up, brow crinkled. “Why not?”

 

“I like the mystery. I like watching you do the impossible.” She realized the truth of the words even as she was saying them.

 

“It’s _not_ impossible, it’s _easy_ , look—” He fluttered the napkin at her emphatically until she snatched it from his hand.

 

“Am I the only person you’ve ever shown this to?”

 

He nodded. “I wouldn’t trust anyone else with this. You’re _it_ , Potts.”

 

Impulsively, she leaned over to kiss his cheek—but Tony turned his head at the last second, her mouth landing at the corner of his.

 

Pepper reared back, startled.

 

“Hmm?” He sounded so careless, as though she’d asked him something and he hadn’t really been paying attention—but she could see him tensing up, his dark eyes alert. She’d finally crossed the line. She’d kissed her boss. Badly.

 

“Sorry.” It was all she could think of.

 

“For what?”

 

He shifted, the leather seat squeaking as he slid closer. He still had his hand on her knee, she realized.

 

“For the—it’s been a long day, and it’s really hot, and…” Pepper knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, miserably.

 

Tony’s expression was blank, indecipherable.

 

“Please tell me what you’re thinking right now,” she urged.

 

“Well,” he replied, without missing a beat, “I’m sitting here, trying to tackle three problems. One is an issue with impact absorption in my boots. I’ve got that mostly worked out, I think, but I want to run some tests this weekend. Second, I’m trying to decide what I want for dinner when I get home— _if_ I ever _get_ home.” He took a deep breath. “Finally, Ms. Potts, there’s the fact that you tried to kiss me about a minute ago—which I would have been fine with, by the way—but then you apologized and tried to backtrack, and now I’m not sure where we’re supposed to go from here.”

 

Pepper’s mouth fell open.

 

“And actually, I figure,” he continued, “that I can probably solve those last two problems most efficiently by combining them. So. Dinner?”

 

“Tony,” she said, weakly.

 

“Off the clock, of course.” The corners of his mouth quirked upwards. “I promise you won’t need to bring your knitting.”

 

The rational part of Pepper knew that if she agreed to go on a date with Tony Stark, nothing would ever be the same. Best-case scenario, she’d have to find a new job; if it didn’t work out, she’d have scuttled her career, and alienated one of her closest friends.

 

The irrational part of Pepper was already grabbing Tony by the lapels and pulling him towards her.

 

She’d known (objectively, anecdotally) that Tony was a great kisser. Experiencing it first-hand, she wasn’t disappointed. His mouth was hot and slick and he tasted smoky, like scotch and static, like a thunderstorm brewing. She may have thrown him off his game momentarily by making the first move, but it didn’t take him long to catch up: soft at first, almost tender, but with a rising intensity that seared her nerves and stole her breath.

 

She’d expected all of that—but what she hadn’t known, couldn’t have known, was how familiar it would feel. She and Tony had never kissed, never held each other close in quite this way, but they had lived their lives together, intimately, for years. He knew more about her than anyone, and she knew him.

 

As it turned out, _she_ was _his_ hobby, as much as he was hers.

 

When they broke apart, Pepper’s only sense of how much time had passed was that the car was finally moving. Her mouth felt swollen and slightly bruised.

 

“Yeah. Yep.” Tony nodded in satisfaction, as though they’d been arguing and he’d just conclusively proven his point. He looked the way she felt: dishevelled, stunned, elated.

 

Pepper took a moment to compose herself: fixing the crooked collar of her blouse, smoothing her skirt over her knees. “Will that be all, Mr. Stark?” she asked, with a cheeky grin.

 

Tony grinned back. “Not by a long shot, Ms. Potts.”

 

 

**Epilogue**

 

The following Sunday, Pepper asked Jane and Elena if they’d mind stepping outside the café for a moment.

 

“I’d like you to meet a friend of mine,” she told them.


End file.
